Quentin Skinner and the History of Political Ideas

• Autor(a) principal: Barros, Alberto Ribeiro Gonçalves de
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Teoria da História
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.ufg.br/teoria/article/view/72044
• topic: Political Ideas; History of concepts; Methodology; Ideias políticas; História das ideias; Metodologia

The purpose of this article is to make a critical balance of Quentin Skinner's methodological proposal based on linguistic context to interpret political writings from the past. At first, the justifications and characteristics of the proposed methodology are presented, whose main guideline is to reconstitute the discursive context in which the text is inscribed, the linguistic conventions that govern the treatment of the topics covered and the author's intention when writing it. Then, the main objections to Skinner's linguistic context and the responses given to his critics are analysed. Finally, the relevance of the proposed methodology for understanding the political ideas of authors from the past is discussed.